Towards a Carnivalesque body
The aim of the workshop is to propose a method and devices for theatrical composition and creation. It is inspired by the historical form of the carnival and its relation to the grotesque. During the carnival period the usual prohibitions and restrictions that regulate social life are lifted, giving way to a kind of counterculture. In the carnival the body takes agency and expands to incorporate all its physiological, emotional and discursive needs.
By identifying and extrapolating the elements and concepts that constitute the carnivalesque and integrating them into our artistic practice, the workshop stimulates and explores the creative potential of our moving body – enabling us to experience the body in an unfinished, provisional state of constant ‘becoming’, oscillating between de- and reconstruction.
We will approach the world of the carnival and the grotesque by way of task-led, thematic exercises focusing on such themes as laughter, the erotic, disharmony, penance, the sacred and the profane etc., employing objects, texts, and above all movement. Within the frame of the workshop’s transversal activity, participants are invited to create little events, either improvised or fixed. Any specific expression, demonstration, cultural manifestation, ritual act, installation may qualify as an ‘event’. We give space to arbitrariness, intuition, uncertainty, causality, conservation of energy, metamorphosis.
We will reflect on the notion of the carnival as counterculture in the 21st century and try to perceive the carnivalesque in contemporary society.
Is there still a social need for subversion? Could the performing arts provide a space for it – or are we just talking about playful activity among friends and would it be enough?
Keywords: Rabelais, Popular Culture, Bakhtin, immanence, grotesque.